C. N. Williamson & A. N. Williamson: 30+ Murder Mysteries & Adventure Novels (Illustrated). Charles Norris Williamson
was this thought which seemed to grip him, and shake him into sudden animation. He sat up, resting on one elbow, not even wincing at the grinding pain that gnawed within the lips of his re-opened wound.
"Not trapped yet," he said. "Keep to the right; to the right—not too far out. She daren't come where we are, for she'd be ripped to pieces on the reef, and she knows that."
"Hark! They've spotted us. She's hailing!" cried Roger Broom.
"Halte! halte!" came harshly across the moonlit space of water, as, obedient to Dalahaide's quick hint, the course of the launch was changed.
The three fugitives were mute, and again a raucous cry broke the silence of the sea.
"Halt, or we fire!"
"They've two cannon," said Maxime. "I was mad to bring this on you, my friends. If they fire——"
"Let them fire, and be hanged to them!" grumbled George Trent. "Two can play at that game. In heaven's name, where's the yacht? Ah—you would, would you!"
This in answer to a shot that, with a red blaze and a loud report, came dancing across the water, churning up spray and missing the launch by a man's length.
"Keep her going, George," said Roger as quietly as was his wont. "Our hope's in speed now, and dodging, till the Bella Cuba takes a part in this game."
As if the calling on her name had conjured her like a spirit from the "vasty deep," the graceful form of the yacht came into sight. George, tingling with the joyous lust of the battle, could not resist a hurrah; but his shout was deadened by the din of another shot, and then an answering roar from the Bella Cuba. One of those cannon of hers had "paid for its keep" at last. Now the yacht, and every one on board her—to say nothing of the three who wished to be on board—were in for a penny, in for a pound.
The act just committed was an offense against law and justice (not always the same) and joined hands with piracy. To be caught meant punishment the most severe for all, possibly even international complications. If the French prison-boat sunk the yacht and the launch, and drowned every soul concerned in this mad adventure, she would be within her rights, and the fugitives knew it well. The Bella Cuba had flung the red rag into the face of the bull, and Roger Broom and George Trent thought they saw Virginia's hand in the unhesitating challenge. Captain Gorst might have thought twice before assuring himself that the time had come to obey orders given in case of dire necessity; but once would be enough for Virginia.
"She's given herself away!" laughed George, keeping the launch between the lagoon and an irregular line of dark horns which, rising just above the shining surface of the water, marked a group of coral reefs. "There won't be much doubt in Johnny Crapaud's mind now as to what part that tidy little craft's cast to play in this show, eh? Hello-o!"
Another blaze and a following roar drew the exclamation; but before George had had time to draw breath after it, he and Roger and Maxime were all three in the water. The ball from the little cannon of the prison-boat had done its work better this time, striking the electric launch on her nose and shattering her to pieces.
George Trent was a brave man, but his first thought was "Sharks!" and the horror of it caught his throat with a sensation of nausea. The instinct of self-preservation is strong in all healthy men, and, though an instant later he was ashamed on realizing it, the fear that thrilled him was for himself. He expected, as his momentarily scattered senses told him what had happened and where he was, to feel huge teeth, sharp as scythes, meet round his thigh and cut off a leg as cleanly as a surgeon's knife.
While he still quivered with this living horror, he remembered that the danger was Roger's and Maxime's as well as his, and manhood and unselfishness came back. He forgot himself in his fear for them, more especially for Maxime—poor Maxime, who had suffered so much that it would be hard indeed if he were to meet a ghastly death in the very act of achieving safety and freedom. Madeleine's beautiful, tragic face rose, clear as a star, before his eyes, and he knew that it would be reward enough for him if he could give his life for the brother she loved so well. If she should say afterward, "Poor fellow, he died that you might live, Maxime," he felt that the words and the gratitude in the girl's heart would warm him even, if his grave were to be under these dark waters at the other end of the world.
He had gone down at first, and a hundred thoughts seemed to have spun themselves in his head by the time he rose to the surface. Shaking the water out of his eyes, he looked anxiously round for Roger and Maxime. They were nowhere to be seen, and a pang shot through George Trent's breast like a dagger of ice. What if one or both of them had already met the terrible fate which he had pictured for himself?
His whole soul was so concentrated upon this fear that for a few seconds he was deaf and blind to everything outside; but suddenly he realized that the firing between the yacht and the Government boat was still going on, a further cannonade which woke strange echoes over the water.
"Roger—Dalahaide!" he called. No answer came, but, as his eyes strained through the haze of moonlight, a dark dot appeared on the bright mirror of the sea, moving fast, and a cry was raised which, though not loud, carried clearly, and seemed to George Trent the most terrible he had ever heard:
"A shark—a shark!"
Chapter X.
“Once on Board the Lugger”
It was Roger Broom's voice which sent across the water that ominous shout so appalling to Trent's ears. Mechanically George swam toward the place where the dark head had risen, but as he took his first stroke a second head appeared beside the other, then both went down together.
That moment concentrated more of anguish for George Trent than all the years of his past life had held. He believed that both Roger and Maxime had almost before his eyes suffered the most hideous death possible to imagine, and he knew that at any instant he might share their fate. But that thought no longer shook him as before. Since the others had died so horribly it would be well that he should die too. A moment of sharp agony, and all would be over. Better so, since he could not go back to Virginia or to Madeleine Dalahaide alone.
His eyes strained despairingly over the cruel glitter of the rippling sea, with a cold, vague feeling that he had reached the edge of the world, and was looking over into the dim mystery of the next. He was young and vigorous, and had loved life for its own sake; but, with Roger and Dalahaide both dead, there was no longer a full-blooded craving for help to save himself in his mind as he gazed toward the yacht and the French boat. Instead he wondered with a sickly curiosity how long it would be before the filthy brutes, which had put an end to his companions, would make a meal of him, and whether it would hurt much, or if unconsciousness would come soon. Mechanically he swam on, more or less in the direction of the Bella Cuba and the French boat, which were at close quarters now; and perhaps there was a scarcely defined hope in his heart that a stray shot might finish him before the hideous "guardians of the Ile Nou" found their chance.
The state of his own brain and nerves became a matter of cold surprise to him; the suspense without fear, though tingling with physical dread, and the capacity for separation of emotions. He found himself thinking of Virginia, and pitying her. This would break her heart, he told himself. She would have a morbid feeling that she was to blame for the disaster; that she had caused the death of her brother and cousin, and the other man so strangely important in her life of late. He wished that he might talk to her, and tell her not to mind, because it was not in the least her fault, and she had done nothing but good.
Then he began to wonder why the yacht and the French boat had ceased firing. The latter had only two guns, while the Bella Cuba had four, and, as he had said to Roger a few minutes (or was it years?) ago, she was but a poor "makeshift," rigged up more as a kind of "scarecrow" for forçats meditating escape than for actual service. Still, she must carry at least ten or twelve rounds of ammunition. Could it be that the little Bella Cuba had contrived to knock a hole in her hull, and that her men